The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Uphill West Bengal battle gets tougher for Left- Congress as ally ISF drops out
IN ANOTHER setback for the Left- Congress alliance in West Bengal, the Indian Secular Front ( ISF) has decided to go its own way, declaring that it plans to contest all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
The ISF had fought the West Bengal Assembly elections in 2021 in alliance with the Left, and the Congress, and was the only one of the three to win a seat in the House. Formed just ahead of the 2021 polls, the ISF had performed impressively in last year’s panchayat elections as well, and had been in talks with the Left for the Lok Sabha polls.
As part of its deal with the Congress, the CPI( M)- led Left Front has left it 12 seats. The ISF announced its decision to go solo at a press conference Thursday, addressed by its lone MLA and its chief, Pirzada Naushad Siddiqui. The Bhangar MLA said the ISF will no longer participate in seat- sharing talk s, and announced candidates for six Lok Sabha seats — Jadavpur, Balurghat, Uluberia, Barrackpore, Diamond Harbour, and Basirhat — as well as for the Bhagawangola bypoll that is also coming up. Earlier, the ISF had announced candidates for eight Lok Sabha seats.
The ISF’S plans had been a matter of speculation ever since Siddiqui initially announced that he would himself be fighting TMC No. 2 and two- time sitting MP Abhishek Banerjee from Diamond Harbour, but later backtracking on the issue. In its list of candidates announced Thursday, it named Majnu Laskar from Diamond Harbour.
After the press conference, Siddiqui justified his decision, saying: “Although I was keen to contest, the ISF is not just for Naushad. It’s the other way around. The party has a system, and that’s our priority. Whatever decision the team has taken, is definitely for the greater good.”
Siddiqui added, “The party think s I should remain in Bhangar to fight for the people there. Also, if I am engaged in Diamond Harbour, who will campaign across the state? So, the party decided not to field me as a Lok Sabha candidate.”
The ISF was launched by popular Furfura Sharif cleric Pirzada Abbas Siddiqui, the elder brother of the Bhangar MLA, with social justice for the state’s Muslims and Dalits as its main agenda. In the 2023 panchayat elections, the ISF did well not just in Bhangar, but across the districts of 24 Parganas ( South), 24 Parganas ( North), Howrah, Malda, Bankura, etc. It had made its panchayat polls performance the basis to demand14 Lok Sabha seats from the Left.